Environmental Economics

All pubs are good pubs

From the inbox:

I am [name] from [name] Publishing.

Would you be interested in publishing your work "Corrigendum: A revealed preference approach to valuing non-market recreational fishing losses from the Deepwater Horizon spill" as a paperback edition?

At [name]Publishing, we have worked with more than 250,000 authors, offering them international, free-of-charge publishing.
Can you imagine your work as a book?

The definition of corrigendum is "a thing to be corrected, typically an error in a printed book." So, yes, sure, I can definitely imagine my correction as a paperback book! Maybe a mystery where I'm the detective trying to uncover research errors of omission and suddenly I look in the mirror and find one of my own?

Actually, my reply was "no thanks."

And this blog could very well be exhibits A, B, and C...case closed.

Ummm...this:

"People are getting dumber. That's not a judgment; it's a global fact. In a host of leading nations, IQ scores have started to decline."

Quote of the Day: Yep, I'm REALLY that guy

"Are you REALLY the guy that wrote that book on nonmarket valuation?"

Nameless graduate student, to me, at lunch today

Context: I was honored to give the keynote address to open the International Society of Forest Resource Economics Annual Meeting, this morning (Proof here because I know most of you don't believe I would be invited to do this--I was invited because it was on campus and I was wiling to do it for free).  Because the audience was supposed to be* a mix of academics, industry-types, government officials, and graduate students, I decided to give the keynote blog-style (non-technical and UNscholarly).  Filled with anecdotes, and cartoons, and jokes, I talked about Revisiting the Principles of Economics: Lessons from Environmental and Resource Economics. 

I guess my approachable presentation style belies my academic credibility. 

*Turned out to be an all academic audience.  The one gov't rep in the room (Chief of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Forestry) came up to me afterwards and said "Yours was that best presentation of the day...or at least it was the only one I sort of understood."  At least I made one person happy.  

 

For the 37th year in a row!

Whew! I'm only 6'3"

I had the pleasure today of attending (and paying for refreshments) for a program titled: Creating Confident Girls, Cultivating Women Who Lead, put on by a local organization called Ruling Our Experiences (Rox)

Rox' mission "IS TO EQUIP GIRLS WITH THE KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS NECESSARY TO LIVE HEALTHY, INDEPENDENT,PRODUCTIVE AND VIOLENCE-FREE LIVES."

Being the father of three, two of whom are young women, interested in STEM fields and entering (or soon to be entering) the workforce, this is a subject I am personally interested in.

During the discussion today, a long-time colleague (and good friend) commented something to the effect "If you look around the University, most of the administration is 6'4" middle-aged white guys."

Good think I'm only 6'3". 

I wouldn't want to be part of the problem.

 

Teaching environmental economics with mini-research projects

My sophomore level environmental and resource econ course has a research component. The students are required to write an abstract suitable for submission to an undergraduate research conference. Most of the students are estimating Turnbull willingness to pay using dichotomous choice data from published papers employing regional case studies. As an exercise during the semester all of the students estimated Turnbull willingness to pay for the large and small oil spill scenarios using the same data from the BP/DWH federal study. Students who don't want to do contingent valuation for their project (aka, the "weirdos") are using experimental data (Veconlab experiments that we have conducted during the semester) to better understand environmental policy. We haven't spent much time talking about how to do this during class so I wrote, created and produced this video to help the students figure out what to do next (my allergies are bothering me so try to ignore the snorting and wiping up around my nose area). 

  

 

Here is a description of the experiment: 

Holt, Charles, Erica Myers, Markus Wråke, Svante Mandell, and Dallas Burtraw. "Teaching opportunity cost in an emissions permit experiment." International Review of Economics Education 9, no. 2 (2010): 34-42. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1477388015300529

Update: journals making it difficult to review a paper

I emailed the link to my blog post to the journal that has me in their reviewer database twice so I can't log in to do the review. This is the reply I received less than an hour later. From the inbox:

Dear Whitehead,

Wait. "Dear Whitehead"? What, are you an undergraduate at a regional state university?

Thank you for considering the invitation to review manuscript [redacted], entitled [redacted]; however, since we have not heard back from you, we are moving forward with the review process. If you were intending to review this manuscript, or feel that this communication has reached you in error, please contact us by reply e-mail and we will update our records accordingly.
We look forward to working with you in the future.
Sincerely,
[redacted]

My reply was to send the link this blog post to the journal.

And no, there will be no working with you in the future.

*****

And in answer to the question that is on the mind every env-econ.net reader, Yes, I'm enjoying the process of destroying whatever positive reputation I had in the research community bit by bit.

 

What should a reviewer do when the journal increases the costs of providing a review?

It has gone down something like this:

1. Get a review assignment from a journal
2. Am unable to login to the journal website to retrieve the paper
3. Find out that the journal has created two accounts for me
4. Journal sends me the paper to review via email
5. Can't login to submit my review
6. I submit my review via email
7. Wait and try to enjoy life and work
8. I receive an invitation to review the revised paper
9. [Today] I'm now ready to submit my review
10. Forgetting my stupid password I attempt to receive it (see below)
11. Rinse, repeat ...

You can also create a "signature"

What is contingent valuation?

Hey fisheries/econ people, is contingent valuation really on the way out? What's replacing it?

— Michael C. Russell (@ProfRussellCIE) October 20, 2017

I'd be interested how @johnwhitehead81 and @tim_env_econ would answer this question.

— Ngaio Hotte (@nhotte) October 21, 2017

I went on a rant (the kids call it a "tweet storm") and since I don't know how to thread my tweets (and I don't want to lose them when Congress shuts down twitter) I thought I'd post them here (with spell check turned on). Tim was also in on it. This happened after I presented a paper using "discrete choice experiment" (DCE) data in Tim's department (that was fun!) so the thing was on our minds.

Here we go:

• John: Yes, CVM is out. And “discrete choice experiments” are in. And, they are the same thing (under certain conditions)!
• John: They are the same thing when the chioce is a for/against referendum with varying cost and benefit of a movement away from the status quo.
• Tim: CV is a DCE with variation in one attribute (typically) and the price. DCE is more flexible but subject to potentially more biases.
• John: I’m not sure why folks are describing CVM as something other than DCE, other than to try to avoid BP funded criticism.
• Tim: To understand the criticism, follow the $.
• John: Given all the CVM nonsense, you’re kinda stupid to call your study CVM and not DCE (call me stupid)
• Tim: For fun, let’s write a paper called “Scope Effects in DCE” and just use one attribute and price and see if anyone notices.
• John: First, write the CVM paper and send to Land Econ (or Env Res Econ) and get rejected because of Hausmann, Diamond and McFadden 1/n
• Tim: Then global replace “scope” with “attribute” and “CVM” with “DCE” and get R&R at Env Res Econ (or Land Econ) 2/n
• John: I honestly believe that’s how dumb it’s become 3/n
• John: I’m working on an R&R where a referee says you can’t (i.e., it’s not allowed) to ask a follow up CVM question anymore 4/n
• John: We explicitly test for changes/biases with the second question 5/n
• John: Research is about trying new things and discovery, not following the rules of the authority figures 6/n
• John: The NRDA context is very different than RESEARCH, the consultants and those who read them uncritically don’t care to differentiate 7/7

Here is the brief off-the-top-of-my-head history of thought:

• Mitchell and Carson (Using Surveys to Value Public Goods, RFF Press, 1989) define CVM as a hypothetical yes/no response to a randomly assigned cost variable. Variations in attributes of the policy/program (aka "scope") is one internal validity test.
• Carson and Louviere (Env and Res Econ, 2011) define referendum CVM with a scope test as a special case of DCE (as in the John/Tim tweets above). Payment card and open ended elicitation questions are CVM only. 
• Carson and Czajkowski (chapter 9 in Hess and Daly 2014) make the point in Carson and Louviere a bit more clear
• Zawojska and Czajkowski (J Env Econ Policy 2017) take it one step too far and say that referendum CVM with a scope test is DCE and not CVM.